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Tandy 1000HX

I

im_an_alien

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May 10, 2007
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Waleska, GA
Yeah, so I just got one. Pretty much the first thing I did when I got home was tested the composite output. It seems to work fine, except that the colors are all messed up. The big blue box when you turn it on, but the gray text is all rainbow colored. Maybe it's just my TV, though. Anyway, what kind of games can I run on it? Any particularly good ones?
 
I seem to remember Starflight and some other games had a "composite" mode that took advantage of the fuzzy messd-up coloration of a composite CGA output to get more colors than CGA was really able to do. I haven't seen it myself, I never used the composite on my HX when I had it. (it got donated when I got a 1000RLX HD as a present)

Of course, lots of games used the TGA video and the tandy sound. I particularly remember the Sierra games and Pirates!. Pirates! was wierd, you could not run it from DOS, you had to boot from the game disk.
 
The Tandy 1000 series color composite video output is not very good. 80-column text is a lost cause on a color composite monitor due to color fringing (the "rainbow" effect). 40-column mode is acceptable but still not great.

Try using the Tandy DOS commands MODE 200 and MODE 225 to see whether 200- or 225-line mode is better on your monitor or TV set. Switching between MODE CO40 and MODE BW40 (or CO80 and BW80) also produces a distinct difference in display quality even if you're not displaying any color.

Tandy DOS also provides the command MODE TV as a preset for what Tandy considered to look best when displayed on a TV set via the composite output.
 
I think we're sending mixed signals to the HX owner. Here's the deal:

If you're hooking it up to a TV, make sure you choose CGA Composite Color mode for every game you start. CGA composite color can produce 16 different colors at a time and many games support it like Flight Simulator, California Games, Starflight, King's Quest, etc.

If you're hooking it up to a real RGB TTL monitor, then pick Tandy 16-color mode. The number of colors is also 16 but the resolution is nicer (320x200 vs. composite's 160x200) and some games run smoother because Tandy graphics allow multiple video pages.

Tandy 16-color graphics do not work on a TV set (you can see the screen but it's in grayscale).
 
Trixter said:
Tandy 16-color graphics do not work on a TV set (you can see the screen but it's in grayscale).
Click to expand...
Are you sure about that?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDtGDqxeBVI

That's the real 16-color 320x200 Tandy graphics mode, as captured via the composite output of my original Tandy 1000 through a 10-year-old Matrox Rainbow Runner G400 video capture card. Now, the colors produced by the composite output may not necessarily be accurate to what the program is trying to display, due to all the color fringing, but it is full color nonetheless, as compared to black & white.
 
vwestlife said:
Are you sure about that?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDtGDqxeBVI

That's the real 16-color 320x200 Tandy graphics mode, as captured via the composite output of my original Tandy 1000 through a 10-year-old Matrox Rainbow Runner G400 video capture card. Now, the colors produced by the composite output may not necessarily be accurate to what the program is trying to display, due to all the color fringing, but it is full color nonetheless, as compared to black & white.
Click to expand...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_sRrHs5dXY&feature=related

That is a better example, we all know Ultima I is outputting Tandy 16-color graphics here, and while a bit monochromatic are clearly not in greyscale.
 
My Tandy 1000s (original models, no HD or anything) do not output Tandy 16-color graphics *accurately* (maybe that's the qualifier). There is color but it does not match TTL RGB accurately. Also, not all CGA graphics modes output accurately either (the RGB palette does but the CMW and CYW palettes don't). This is still an improvement over CGA though, since *no* CGA graphics mode outputs in color on a real CGA card (other than 160x200 composite color mode of course).

You guys seem to have HX and EXs; maybe Tandy fixed or added something. I have a few Tandys lying out scheduled to be put away; I'll instead drag them over to a TV and check out some video modes.
 
Trixter said:
This is still an improvement over CGA though, since *no* CGA graphics mode outputs in color on a real CGA card (other than 160x200 composite color mode of course).
Click to expand...
My original IBM CGA board displays 4-color 320x200 graphics in full color via the composite output on an Amdek Color-I monitor. In fact the only mode that appears not to display in color via the composite output is 80x25 text mode, but there's a trick -- set the border color to anything other than black, and it'll magically turn on the color burst and give you craptacular rainbow-smeared 80x25 color composite text!

Of course, the "tweaked" 320x200 white-red-cyan palette won't display in color on any composite monitor since the one thing which makes the tweak possible is turning off the color burst. But everything else should display in color via CGA composite output as long as the color burst is enabled.

And some CGA games have a nasty habit of turning off the color burst even though they don't use the tweaked palette. That's annoying and there's not much you can do about it.

You guys seem to have HX and EXs; maybe Tandy fixed or added something. I have a few Tandys lying out scheduled to be put away; I'll instead drag them over to a TV and check out some video modes.
Click to expand...
Mine is an original 3-slot 1000 -- not even a 1000A. (I also have a 1000RL-HD, but that's irrelevant because it doesn't have a composite output at all.)
 
Trixter said:
My Tandy 1000s (original models, no HD or anything) do not output Tandy 16-color graphics *accurately* (maybe that's the qualifier). There is color but it does not match TTL RGB accurately.
Click to expand...

That would describe the colors shown in the youtube videos well enough.

Trixter said:
Also, not all CGA graphics modes output accurately either (the RGB palette does but the CMW and CYW palettes don't). This is still an improvement over CGA though, since *no* CGA graphics mode outputs in color on a real CGA card (other than 160x200 composite color mode of course).
Click to expand...

That is very odd, why would one palette work and the other palettes fail?

Video modes 1, 3, 4 and 6 (with color burst enabled) will display in some kind of color on a real CGA card connected to a composite monitor. The color may not be ideal, but it will not be in monochrome or greyscale. Video modes 0, 2, 5 and 6 (with color burst disabled) will appear in greyscale on a composite monitor. The proof of this phenomenon is well-documented.
 
vwestlife said:
My original IBM CGA board displays 4-color 320x200 graphics in full color via the composite output on an Amdek Color-I monitor. In fact the only mode that appears not to display in color via the composite output is 80x25 text mode, but there's a trick -- set the border color to anything other than black, and it'll magically turn on the color burst and give you craptacular rainbow-smeared 80x25 color composite text!
all.)
Click to expand...

I believe that when the IBM is set to 80 column text with the jumpers, the monochrome 80 column mode (Mode 2) is set. I guess setting the border color also turns the color burst bit. DOS sets it to Mode 3, which is color, by default.
 
i think the rainbow colored text is pretty normal, it's just because of the low quality of composite NTSC video, probably in combination with a low quality NTSC encoder in the tandy. the one i just got today is exactly the same and i've tried it on two TV's.
 
I know on my EX there's a button you have to push when it boots up to switch to TV mode. (I forget which one, but the keyboard should be labeled. Just slip the little covers off above the function buttons to see what it says.)
 
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